1 week Ago By Bharti Jain
NEW DELHI: Gujarat home minister Harsh Sanghavi on Saturday countered former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal 's post on 'X' questioning the deployment of Gujarat police personnel for Delhi assembly elections -- days after the Election Commission ordered the removal of Punjab police personnel handling from Kejriwal's security -- saying that it is a routine practice for EC to use forces from other states in a poll-going state. Pointing to the EC's norms, Sanghavi quoted Kejriwal's post to state that the EC has requested forces from various states, "not just Gujarat", for poll deployment in Delhi. "In fact, the Election Commission of India has ordered SRP (state reserve police) deployment from various states, as a routine procedure.
"As per their request, 8 companies of SRP from Gujarat were sent to Delhi for the scheduled election on 11/1/25," he shared while questioning the selective mention of Gujarat by Kejriwal. Sanghavi also posted the relevant document, which states that there shall be advance deployment of 70 companies of Central armed police forces by January 8, 2025 for area domination, confidence building measures, conduct of flag marches, surveillance etc during the election process in Delhi. The fax message from the ministry of home affairs to the principal secretary(home) of Delhi government adds that it has been decided to deploy an additional 75 companies of CAPFs/state armed police/India Reserve battalions for conduct of safe, free and fair assembly election in Delhi.
The list of these 75 companies, as mentioned in the fax, includes 10 companies of CAPFs like CRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSB and 65 companies of various state armed police (SAR) or India Reserve (IR) battalions. Of the 65 SAR/IR companies, 10 each would be from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand; 8 each from Chhattisgarh and Gujarat; 7 each from Maharashtra and Karnataka; and five from Rajasthan. With the 75 additional companies, the total availability of forces for poll security in Delhi would be 145 companies, roughly comprising 14,500 personnel, noted the fax.
In a separate post also quoting Kejriwal's tweet, BJP leader Amit Malviya further added that it is standard practice to deploy state armed forces alongside CAPFs for election duties. "Even for Delhi elections, police forces from 12 states and Union territories including Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra have been mobilised," he stated while reminding that Punjab police was withdrawn not from election duty in Delhi but Kejriwal's personal security. As per the rules regarding deployment of VIP security, barring SPG protectees, the security detail of a VIP under State protection should be handled by the local state/UT police.
Everytime the VIP travels outside the state, the police of the destination state/UT is informed beforehand and requested to arrange the security detail as per the threat level or entitlement of the VIP..
